Computer Kids

Peninsula Teams Get High Ratings At Computer Challenge

April 20, 1995|By JENNIFER ANDES Daily Press

President Clinton indirectly helped a team from Wythe Elementary School in Hampton win a first-place ranking in the 1995 Great Computer Challenge.

The Wythe team was among six on the Peninsula and in Isle of Wight County to place "first" or "superior" ratings in various categories in the junior competition, which was held March 25 at Huntington Middle School in Newport News. Students in grades six through 12 will compete April 29 at Old Dominion University in Norfolk.

Teams are given a set of 12 tasks to perform using communications software. Composing a letter through e-mail, or electronic mail, to President Clinton was one of the required tasks.

In their e-mail message, the Wythe students thanked the president for his support of technology in public schools. They received a form letter in reply.

"You're in Virginia and he's all the way in Washington, D.C.," Jasmyn says of President Clinton. "He's probably signing peace treaties. It's an honor to write an e-mail message to President Clinton."

Other tasks included finding the lyrics to a song from "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood," the date of Thomas Jefferson's first Inaugural Address and a Virginia House bill.

Jasmyn's team tied for first place in this competition along with a team from Windsor Elementary in Isle of Wight. All third-through fifth-grade teams were ranked first, second, third or honorable mention in either graphic arts, desktop publishing, logo programming or telecomputing.

Kindergarteners through second-graders, however, were ranked superior, excellent, good or honorable mention in either graphic arts or primary publishing.

Jamie Antes, Jessica Hellams and Jennifer Romeo, all second-graders at Tabb Elementary in York County, were among three Peninsula teams to tie for superior ratings in graphic arts.

The other teams were from Seaford Elementary in York County and R.O. Nelson in Newport News.

The teams had 1 1/2 hours to draw the scene of a field trip or a picnic. Jamie's team chose a field trip to the forest.

"We would know a lot of details of a forest," Jamie says, explaining why her team chose the forest. "Lots of neat trees and a path and stuff." A deer drawn by Jessica had "real cool antlers ... that looked like a branch with lots of little branches on it," Jamie says.

Jamie and her partners not only enjoyed the competition, says teacher Cynthia Burns, but they also learned cooperation. "One person couldn't dominate," Burns says, but rather all three team members had to take a turn drawing.

Seaford Elementary second-graders Michael Sage, Jacob Darrow and Eric White chose a field trip to outer space. "We put planets, and we had a moon, and then there was a person on the moon," Michael says. "We had the sun, and it had, like, flames around it."

In the competition for primary publishing, a team of second-graders from Hidenwood Elementary in Newport News was the only Peninsula team to rank superior in the competition for primary publishing, which teacher Jane Adams says entails writing a story on a specific topic.

Adams credits Kathryn Riedmiller, Nicole Kuykendall and Deanna Privette for their use of description in writing about a girl's favorite vacation to Disney World.

"They had strong paragraphs using a lot of descriptive language," Adams says.

For example, the girls described their character telling her friends about her upcoming trip, noises she heard while on the airplane and birds and other sights and sounds while at Disney World, Adams says.

The students not only had to write the essay, but also type it into the computer, "which is a skill in itself for a second-grader," Adams says.

Kathryn says she enjoyed composing the essay, but that the real fun came at the end. "When they called our names, I felt very, very happy, and my mom smiled really big."

WHRO, Old Dominion University and the Consortium for Interactive Instruction, a WHRO-managed activity that advocates the use of technology in education, sponsored the competition, which included 500 students and 134 teams from 17 school systems in Hampton Roads.

WINNING KIDS

Top Peninsula winners in the 1995 Great Computer Challenge junior division are students from these elementary schools:

* Tied for superior in Graphic Arts: Seaford and Tabb, both of York County; R.O. Nelson, of Newport News.

* Ties for superior in Primary Publishing: Hidenwood, of Newport News, and a team in Portsmouth and one in Norfolk.

* Tied for first place in Telecomputing: Windsor in Isle of Wight; Wythe in Hampton.